The invention relates to an electronic timepiece for displaying time by using an optical display device.
An electronic timepiece with a liquid crystal display device or a light emission diode display device to digitally display time such as minute or hour, has been known as an electronic timepiece for displaying time by using an optical display device. This type of electronic timepiece can be set to an alarm time. To change the alarm time thus set to another alarm time, a switch is operated to select a unit of time and the units digit and/or the tens digit of the time unit and then another switch is operated to change the time set at the units digit and/or the tens digit thus selected. To operate two switches in order to change an alarm time is rather troublesome. Further, to prevent these switches from being operated by mistake, a safety switch is required. Consequently, the timepiece should be provided with many switches.
Various timepieces with an alarm function and an optical display device are now widely marketed. When an alarm time is set in such an alarm timepiece, it is displayed in place of the current time. While seeing the alarm time displayed, the user operates a switch to select a unit of time and the units digit and/or the tens digit of the time unit and then operates another switch to change the time set at the units digit and/or the tens digit thus selected. The alarm timepiece further has a switch for selecting a time-setting mode or an alarm time-setting mode. As described above, the conventional timepieces need many switches, and as many switching operations must be made. For this, the switching operation is complicated, thus causing erroneous switching operations.
Accordingly, an object of the invention is to provide an electronic timepiece which may decrease the number of switches, reliably correct time by a simple operation and which is easy to handle.
Another object of the invention is to provide an electronic timepiece which is very handy and easy to set an alarm time.